Versailles, March 11, France (dpa/GNA) – EU leaders unleashed the fourth round of hard-hitting sanctions on Russia and promised more military aid to Ukraine on Friday, the final day of an informal summit in Versailles near Paris.
“We are committed to supporting Ukraine,” European Council President Charles Michel said after the summit, adding that the second tranche of €500 million ($550 million) in military aid would be disbursed.
The European Union’s decision follows a historic agreement two weeks ago to finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and equipment to a non-EU country. The first defence contribution to Ukraine consisted of a €500-million funding mechanism.
EU leaders agreed on “a fourth package of measures to further isolate Russia and drain the resources it uses to finance this barbaric war,” European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement issued after the summit.
Almost simultaneously, US President Joe Biden announced that his government also planned to impose further sanctions, including the withdrawal of Moscow’s “permanent normal trade relations” status.
This change in trading status is to be agreed upon at the World Trade Organization, a statement issued by the G7 group of industrialized nations said.
The US-led move isolates Russia in trade terms and downgrades Moscow’s status as an economic partner for the West.
Moves to prohibit Russia’s access to finance at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are also underway, as well as a ban on the export of luxury goods to Russia, the statement said.
French President, Emmanuel Macron, said the fourth round of sanctions does not rule out even more extreme measures against Russia, “depending on what happens” on the ground in Ukraine.
A host of issues relating to the two-week-old war in Ukraine were on the table at the summit talks, including whether to grant Ukraine a clear EU membership perspective, how to improve defence cooperation among member states and how to mitigate the economic and humanitarian impact of the conflict.
Macron said the EU’s answer to Ukraine’s bid for fast-tracked accession to the bloc in light of the war was “no.”
“Yesterday the European Council conveyed a very strong and clear message about the fate of Ukraine in Europe,” he said of the leaders’ talks.
“Could we have exceptional measures for a country that is at war without respecting the criteria [for accession]? The answer is no.”
The comments came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky published a video calling on the bloc to “do more” for Ukraine.
“The European Union should do more. It must do more for us, for Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “The decisions of politicians must coincide with the mood of their people.”
Macron said: “I can understand the emotional response and the expectations that are there.”
Von der Leyen welcomed member states’ commitments to spend more on defence, but said it was important to avoid fragmentation. A coordinated approach was necessary to maintain an edge, she said.
The commission chief added that the EU executive was to publish an analysis of “defence investment gaps” in the bloc.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel also urged the EU to make defence spending more efficient, saying: “In the European Union, we spend more money on military expenditure than Russia. But we buy so many different things that we spend way too much money.”
Talks at the two-day summit also focused on reducing the bloc’s dependency on non-EU countries in a number of different areas.
Specifically, von der Leyen announced plans to completely rid the EU of its dependence on Russian gas, oil and coal by 2027 – more ambitious than a previous 2030 target.
EU leaders further agreed to target a 20% market share in the production of semiconductors by 2030, valuable components for industrial manufacturing the bloc has identified as a strategic priority.
GNA